Lord Baek received us at dawn.
This was, Ren informed me quietly as we made our way through the outer corridors of the Baek estate, itself a statement. Men who received visitors at dawn were men who had not slept. Men who had not slept were men who had been waiting.
Lord Baek had been waiting for us.
He was in the inner garden — not the formal one, the private one, where the stones were old enough to have names and the plum trees had been planted by his grandfather. He stood with his hands folded in the sleeves of a plain robe, watching the sky lighten in the east, and he did not turn when we arrived.
"You found the archive," he said.
"We found the archive," I confirmed.
He turned then. His face, in the grey morning light, was something I had not expected: relief. Not satisfaction. Not calculation. Simple, exhausted relief.
"Good," he said. "I was beginning to worry I'd made a mistake, sending you toward it."
